Paperless Christmas is an interesting and thought provoking online Advent calendar.
Worth checking out the videos.
Paperless Advent
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Category Archives: advent
the right moment
I started Beginnings and Endings today and found myself struck with a simple thought – Advent reminds us that God gives gifts at the right moment which we may not think is the right date. During Advent, and as we speed to Christmas, it is easy to be sucked into needing the right present for a set uniform time – and yet Advent is about the return of the saviour, getting ourselves ready – not for the right time, but for the right moment.
Advent
Today is the first day of Advent (despite what various calendars and candles may suggest!).
During the season of Advent, Christians across the world prepare for the celebration of the arrival of the Lord into the world through the birth of his Son Jesus Christ. Advent is a time to celebrate light in the midst of darkness. It is also a time to look forward to when Jesus will come a second time.
Today in the cathedral we shall wear a purple stoles. This is a colour to signify royalty as we wait for the return of Jesus. Purple is also a colour that would be seen at Lent and during Holy Week as it also signifies fasting and suffering.
That link is key for me as I prepare to worship on the first day of Advent. This season, the birth of Jesus are inextricably linked to Lent, crucifixion and resurrection. The two go together and for a ‘complete’ gospel we need to keep that central in our thinking.
The ‘lovely’ story that people enjoy to hear has a gritty edge of reality which enables us to relate to the incarnate God.
Advent
To echo my friend in Gloucester’s invite for Advent carols – if you are on the wrong side of the country to join those in Gloucester cathedral, join us in Rochester at 6.30 for an Advent Procession with carols – although to get a seat I guess you will need to be there a good time earlier than that.
Tomorrow is the first day of Advent, a season I have been looking forward to this year, although I do think I have been having a bit of an Advent season since September.
Each Advent I like to take time to reflect and last year used Disturbing Complacency to assist me in my daily thoughts throughout Advent. This year I will be reading Maggi Dawn’s Beginnings and Endings each day.
So … here’s to more looking and waiting. As have been approaching Advent the words from the crucifixion scene have been bouncing around my head over and over again:
Lord … remember me when you come into your Kingdom.
Advent Conspiracy
I don’t usually place You Tube videos on my blog – just because I don’t like how they look – I think they look ugly, but that’s probably my snobbery coming out!
This video is worth watching and has challenged me – should we join The Advent Conspiracy?
I had a little discussion about this after Matins this morning in the cathedral and the main opinion was that we should but then the other view was put across – if we did buy less, would we then be contributing to the down-turn in our manufacturing based economy which would then result in people losing their jobs in the run up to or quite soon after Christmas?
What a dilemma! What should be the correct Christian response here? To buy less and take people out of poverty, or continue as we are and keep people out of poverty? I think I lean strongly to the former – but it is not as clear cut a decision as I immediately thought when I first watched this video last night. Is it even possible to have a definitive Christian response here?
How have we got to the situation where we need to buy crap we don’t need, and know we are buying crap we don’t need or won’t be wanted, to ensure people still have a living? Pretty bizarre!
Advent: Christmas Eve’s extraordinary surprise
I have enjoyed Disturbing Complacency as it has assisted and enabled me to at least start each day focusing on what this season is all about.
Today is the last day of Advent, and as such focusing on the surprise of a child as God’s answer to what the world needed is quite amazing. Were we might think a great army, or money, or something else might be needed to transform the world; God comes up with the idea of a weak and vulnerable baby.
It is even more amazing to realise that that weak, vulnerable baby totally in the care of a teenage mother and her husband, is actually God incarnate in human flesh.
The miracle, the gift of the season, is so amazing on so many different levels. The more you think about the vulnerability and what may have gone wrong, the more amazing it becomes.
The gift of Christmas is God who became vulnerable out of a great love for the world.
Extraordinary!
Advent 22 spiritul heartbeat
the majesty of creation is seen throughout the land, the sounds of Creation mingle with the music of the spheres
Psalm 104:1-13
As we listen what do we hear?
Do we focus in on the immediate; the noise of the traffic, the screaming neighbours,the radio, the colleague across the desk, the snoring commuter, the guilt pang of the undone tasks?
Or…
are we able to hear beyond?
to hear the sounds of creation?
do we welcome the comfort of everyday sounds
or
are we courageous enough to take the time
to tune in to the heartbeat of God?
Advent 21: Resistance not avoidance!
“Now is the time to face the reality of dominant culture that has become self-seeking. There are already groups of people who resist avoidance, who seek awareness and truth. May we join one another in searching for richer relationship with God through Christ by becoming partners with our neighbours near and far.”
Lisa Bodenheim Disturbing Complacency
Advent 20: nice compassion
Todays Disturbing Complacency thought centres on the text of Matthew 5:38-48. It talks of loving enemies. No mater how much I try to skirt around the meaning of this, it is clear – I am called to love those who are my enemies. I don’t think I have ‘enemies’ as such, but there are enemies of the Kingdom of God, enemies that would wish me harm due to the fact that I am a Christian. No matter says Jesus, it is clear here – I am called to love them.
That does not mean we are called to be nice, but we are called to be compassionate. Showing compassion can put us in the firing line. Certainly showing compassion can make you vulnerable; it can even cause others to think you are weak and attempt to exploit you.
Showing compassion in Christian circles to those that others do not agree with can also get you into hot water!
But – showing compassion, nonetheless, is the command of the day. Could showing compassion be part of taking up your own cross?
Advent 19: right to be right?
This morning’s Disturbing Thought had me looking at a well known passage in a way that I have never looked at it in the past.
All the nations of the world will be gathered before him, and he will separate them into two groups as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The Son of Man will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to the people on his right … (Matt 25:31)
The word I had not noticed, but drawn out by Bodenheim is nations. It is nations here that are arranged to the left and right, not individual people as I had ‘heard’ before. I am not sure what that means for us today!
It is interesting to see, as well, that neither set of people, the goats and the sheep, has any idea as to why they are being judged as they are. As Bodenheim points out, there is nothing about professing faith, or claiming Jesus as Lord; the believers are not separated from non-believers. Instead nations who show compassion are separated from nations that do not.
Today I have been disturbed by this and as the day draws to a close wonder if this is really all about how we use the power that we have to help the poor and neglected? Do we, instead get embroiled and use our power to attempt to win arguments in the stuff that God is not that bothered about while we dismiss the issues that clearly God is concerned about, such as how we treat the weak in our societies?
The Shiny Headed Prophet 